tiger pride!

*** below is a post that i began, and apparently never published from Jan 2016

what a fun an exciting time it's been this football season.
and right now it's all clemson all up in here!

you don't know how close i was to trying to find a way to the BIG game!

clemson has had a lot of lucky breaks this season which has propelled them to #1.  they were #1 way sooner than i thought they should; sooner than i felt was deserved (b/c of all the luck).
i am so proud that after watching them in the Peach Bowl i can honestly say that was one helluva game.  a well-earned and much deserved win!

i have said from the beginning when there was a glimmer of hope that we would make it to the National Championship-  it was a speck of a glimmer, really- "we can't beat alabama!"

i was hoping someone else would have by now so we would be facing someone else....
but alabama has it's own set of interesting for this game.  it will be one helluva fight.
but i am not discounting it.

if fan-dom could win a game, i know we would win hands down.  bama takes this thing for granted.  there aren't people lining up on overpasses to cheer on their buses.  when they announced the final 4 teams, we were having a pizza party and it was pretty quiet over there with saban.

i hope that when we become a championship team (meaning, we get to this game several times; win divisions, etc) we won't be "over and done" with it.
it's 1,981 miles to the stadium in Arizona.  Let's hope we can bring it home!

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TRULY amazing that i can say DITTO.  strike Peach Bowl and insert Fiesta Bowl.  take out the sentence of "we can't beat alabama" because i was immensely proud of how we handled Clemson/Bama version1.0
in fact THIS time around i felt way more confident.  even though our season didn't seem to be as good.  (not just because we weren't number one; and we did have one loss).

last year we had so many lucky breaks.  same again.
but we so earned it all.
so does every other team out there.
and if anyone watched the national championship this year, it was truly incredible.  but this year, instead of running out of time; we stayed til' the very. last. second!

i'm amazed.

this season alone, we beat all of the college champions who have been it for the past 7 years.  auburn, florida state, ohio state & alabama.

Auburn was our opening game.  on their turf.  historically a difficult stadium to play in as a visiting team.  WE DID IT.

Florida State- our in conference rival- on their turf.  especially difficult.
WE DID IT.  first time in a decade that we won at their stadium!

Ohio State was the Fiesta Bowl playoff. WE DID IT.
Urban Meyer has only lost 3 bowl games in his whole career.  Dabo Swinney gave him 2 of those losses.  Clemson & OSU have faced each other three times in history.  We are undefeated.  Oh! and let's not forget that for the first time in his 194 games, Urban Meyer scored zero.

Alabama- we have met with them 17 times.  Previously we had lost the last 13. WE DID IT.  the last time we beat Bama was in 1905. The same year Einstein published his theory of relativity.
Oh! and this is the first time in 97 games where Alabama had the lead of more than 10 points in the 4th quarter that Nick Saban lost the game.

That game!- man! it could & did go either way.
I'm just incredibly proud,happy,excited,elated,amazed&giddy that FINALLY it went OUR way!

i also find it amazing that dabo is the only coach in history to win the national championship both as a player AND as a coach!

OH and if you wanna know a bunch of other fun tidbits about clemson.......

surreality

a few surreal things have occurred recently.  in no particular order of importance:

The Mr. will miss our 12th wedding anniversary because he is exactly where he was a year ago when he missed our 11th anniversary. [ obviously, no, i didn't come with.]i am constantly being challenged with the concept of the time change.  it's fun to share with The Bean, too.  we get a kick out of knowing that we wake up when he goes to sleep.
However, time really does seem warped to know that he sent me an anniversary card from the airport when he left.  it came to me as he landed.
it makes sense since his travel day was pretty much 24hrs, but when you put it that way, it just felt pretty surreal.

********

this morning, The Bean asked me if we ever went to Callaway Gardens.  I told her we went when she was a baby.  so after breakfast, i pulled up her blog & showed her a few of the pix I had posted.  which led to a couple of other posts.  which led to me just randomizing my blog...  she was pretty captivated and she captivated me by reading my words back to me.

that's surreal enough- but another great thing-  she gets my humor! 

********

 i have been having lots of deep dreams again, lately.  this is nothing new to me.  whether it is brought about because of (yet another) medication i really can't tell.  what i do know is these are surreal, yes, but not as evil or dark or scary as some of mine can be (medicated or not)

********

 i am currently typing this while watching the Ohio State, Virginia Tech game.  surreal that i care a damn about football that's not even Clemson.  surreal that VT is up by 2 TD's after OSU missed not one but 2 field goal attempts.  the fact that I even know that is surreal is surreal in itself.

********

unfortunately there is some surreal shit going on in my family that is not at all what would be expected (even from my crazy family).    it's life-changing.  and not the good kind.

********

The Bean has had more bouts of odd coincidences.   (The Mr. calls them coincidences.  i'm not sure how to explain them).  

she pretended some squirrels were named Coleman and Lillianna.  Two names that I know in my life; neither of which are amazingly important- but those are not names we know of in her little 6 year old world.  Neither one of them are particularly common.  And who names squirrels anyway??

Also surreal?  she said to me that 90 is old and she doesn't want to be old.  She only wants to be 40.  anyone who knows me knows that is amazing.  and what 6 year old thinks like that.  At breakfast. when we were not talking about birthdays or ages or old or anything that could have led her to this statement.

and lastly?  she spoke in such a way that I seriously had to consider if something is ESP if your own mind is blank.  I will be posting that story on her blog next.....

days 1 & 2

well, i wanted to do a quick post to run-down any side effects of my new crazy pill.

to make it easy, i'll just say:  none.

i have taken 2 half-pills, and i haven't felt anything.  i have made sure to have caffeine so i won't confuse reasons for a headache.
i'm such a skeptic anyway- i don't want to cloud anything.

doc new guy said i *could* feel immediate happy.  that is also not the case, though i didn't begin this in a down time either.  i was already at a point where i wasn't very low.  which i guess is my "happy"

i wish i knew why i do this.

i know on paper i should NOT feel depressed AT ALL.
if you don't believe me, read my oh MAN posts...  i got lucky in the Mr. department!
but, for whatever reason (and no apparent reason) i have times where i just struggle to feel happy or "like myself".  which is kind of a misnomer because for so much of my life this is how i've been--- so i guess that's EXACTLY like myself.

i don't know what it is about me that thinks things-everything!-should be better.
and i don't know what it is about me that sometimes can ignore the hate & anger i feel towards myself.

anyways, i guess i'm going off on a tangent.

things here are fine.
today the bean and i had a swim playdate & watched some football.  Yay for Clemson. and especially Yay that USC lost to UGA.  [this is the one game i will NEVER root for the 'cocks again]. & yesterday i was extremely busy with only about 45minutes of my day unaccounted for til dinner.  The Mr. had to travel (say hi, Constantine!) but the busy-ness of my day helped me to cope for day 1.
we've always known that keeping busy helps me a lot.
also looking forward & planning for things.

but what happens when you lack all motivation??

let's hope day 3 (and all the rest) continues to help....  i would love to gain what i think is lost on me.

unbelievable

i cannot be any more amazed at clemson tigers tonight!
the biggest woo-hoo the internet can muster.

unbelievable.

for those of you who don't know/ and might care-
they had the first 11 win season in years (only 4 in 130+ years) by beating LSU (wtf) in the chickfila bowl.

never would have ever thought that to happen.
especially since one of our stars was injured (and fumbled) on the opening play.

i have been a fan of dabo swinnney for ever.
let it continue!!!

GO TIGERS

AAAAAHHHH FALL!

so november started out with a bang.

november 1st i went for a run with The Mr. for the first time in 10 months or more.
i struggled up the little hill out of my neighborhood.
then, i fell.

truly.
on my face.
it was awfully painful, embarrassing & ridiculous.

nothing was there to make me fall.  i didn't trip over anything.  The Mr. has seen me fall on quite a few occasions in our life.  usually i just skin my knee really bad & rip my jeans or something.

i broke a front tooth in half (beautiful). chipped the other front tooth, and for good measure cracked the 3rd tooth. i had a fat lip, i scraped the heck out of my palm & got GIANT road burn on my knee.  bruised the other knee.

i was in pain for a week.

i came home from the dentist all "nice & fixed" 2 hours from when it all started.  so that was good.  The Mr. was with me, so that was excellent.

my tooth still doesn't feel exactly normal, but i'm able to manage eating.  (biting into things is still causing odd feelings).  and my knee has finally stopped hurting and i was able to get up and down stairs last week.

so today i ran again.
and according to Nike + i logged my 100th mile (exactly).  and i didn't fall!

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and november didn't start off well for my brother and his wife, who have spent the better part of the month with their daughter in ICU.  things were looking dire there for a bit.
i think (??) the worst fear is over, and she needs to continue to heal. (still in the ICU)

*******************************************************

we spent some time in the mountains last weekend, so that was nice.
the bean's 20+minute loud as hell tantrum in the orchard was not so nice. 

why is it the "best" tantrums are for no reason at all?

the waterfalls we hiked & drove to were nice.  the leaves were mostly pretty (tho' in the NC mountains, they were probably 3/4 already fallen).  and hanging out with The Mr.'s parents was nice.

*******************************************************

we are looking forward to the thanksgiving holidays.  it will be a very long weekend filled with family time, relaxing time, yummy food time, football time, and hopefully injury-free/hospital-free time. 

i hope your fall is going well, and you're not being literal with the term as i had been!

happy holidays

aaahhh fall

just a quick post to declare, once and for all- I LOVE FALL.
for the record.  write it in blood.  order a plaque.
fall is wonderful.
[at least in georgia.]

i'm typing this as i'm smelling my first roast (after summer) cooking in the oven.  roasted potatoes.  yum.  warm. familiar.  yay.

last night, after enjoying a most gorgeous (yet slightly windy) autumn day, we came home from dinner and started our fire pit.  hooray!  The Mr. got me one for mother's day.  we used it once (june 1st) and now i just want to use it all the time.

reasons to love fall, from the obvious to the practical, in no particular order:

• it's not hot!!!
• looking forward to going to a mountain house for a weekend!
• college football saturdays (i cannot believe i'm saying that!)
• beautiful leaves.
• the sounds of the leaves
• seeing the leaves covering parts of your front yard (don't rake them TOO quickly, Mr.)
• watching the littlegirl enjoy said raking.  (she asks me every!day! is it time yet???)
• cool mornings. 
• hoodies, sweaters, jackets.
• long days at the park.
• the joys of the autumn holidays. (my bday, halloween, t'giving and xmas prep)
• picnics w/o sweat & bugs swarming
• hearty meals
• apples and the things you can do with them. (painting prints, baking, dipped in PB or nutella)
• baking new recipes. (applesauce muffins, pumpkin bread, baked donuts etc)
• our fire pit.
• roasting marshmallows at said fire pit
• lower electric bills.
• w/o the AC on (or heater) you can hear "nature"--- crickets, tree frogs.
• can sleep with the window cracked for a few weeks.
• not having to mow every single weekend.  (more time for The Mr. to enjoy saturdays)
• blankets
• cuddling
• reading little girl books on a blanket outside
• carving a pumpkin (or more like watching The Mr. do that)
• watching little girl help with said pumpkin.
• enjoying an afternoon coffee.
• early dark.
• (the rare days) sleeping in for the late dark mornings.
• being able to run b/c it's not meltingly hot outside
• my annual 5k (in 2 wks)
• back to school (not gonna lie.... love the routine)
• lazy cloudy coldish days (rare)

i bet i could list even more; and make this list better....   but
i guess i just needed a nice reminder of the "ups"
so glad it's finally here!

tell me----  WHAT DID I MISS?  can't wait to be reminded of yet another reason to love this season.

Yay tigers!

Dear Dabo,
First of all, Hello! How are you? You must still be reeling with excitement over that glorious win in the ACC Tournament! You looked quite handsome even as they gave you a gatorade bath. Your words were very poised at the end, and I was quite proud to have always stuck with you.

However, I apologize for doubting the Tigers.
To be fair, it wasn't you I was doubting. I have been one of your biggest fans for the past 3 years. I watched how you had a different way of energizing the team. I loved watching when you first began & everyone liked to showcase the way you and the team marched on the field arm-in-arm.
You seemed to bring a togetherness to the team it has lacked since I've been a student at CU.
I saw on many occasions over the past few years how you could really turn it around after a great halftime pep talk.
Still, seeing the way the team had played the previous 4 games.... I didn't count on much.

I'm sorry I told the couple that was wearing their Virginia Tech gear at that little shop in Charlotte that i knew they would win.
(Yes, I'm glad they never found me in order for me to pay them the drink I owed them for kicking their butts in the ACC Tournament)
I even told our waitress at Chili's (a Clemson freshman) that I was just hoping for an interesting game.

You see, I pretty much knew we would lose to GA Tech back when we played them having a record of 8-0 & being #5 in the nation. I didn't really want to be #5. That didn't feel right. I was more content with being #8.
I was OK with losing to GA Tech. Because truly, I didn't expect us to be undefeated. (we're no Alabama or LSU!) and if we had to lose, the yellowjackets were a good match for us.
Certainly didn't want our first loss to be to a crappy team like Maryland (*whew! that was CLOSE). Of course, I wouldn't want to lose to NC State either. (woops). Leaving just USC as potentially "only" loss. That would be horrible. So, I was glad to give up our Tech win. However, watching that game made me shudder. And I knew from then on our battles would be huge. Even more huge than the ones that gave us that 8-0 start.
Beating 3 back-to-back ranked teams didn't seem like a big deal after watching that game and the following games.

USC must have enjoyed wiping us all over the field when we played Thanksgiving weekend.
So, yes. I was a doubter.
But never a hater.

They almost gave me a coronary a few times watching the big game!
I was too afraid to cheer when I saw the many touchdowns and interceptions! I was always afraid the refs would take it all back.

I couldn't believe that it was VT that kept making penalties. For I've seen Clemson give up lots on penalties. (and we tend to not capitalize on lucky breaks)
So-
Kudos to you, Dabo. You and all your team.
I can't wait to see us in the Orange Bowl. (perfectly fitting color, by the way!)

Sincerely,
mpotter- a happy tiger & Dabo fan.

PS- wasn't it precious how everyone began throwing oranges on the field???

PPS- I certainly hope you were able to pull some strings and let the whole town of Clemson finally watch the glorious game, since there was the massive power outage that began just as the game started!!

96 & 97 explained

i thought it might be fun to expound on some of my list of 100. (who am i kidding? i need some ideas)
so, #96 & 97 go somewhat hand-in-hand:

The Mr. & i are about to celebrate our 7th wedding anniversary. we got married in my hometown- columbia, SC, home of the Gamecocks. it happened to be a BIG game weekend. at "home". which seriously pissed off a sister of mine. and caused a ruckus among others. traditionally, the USC/UGA game is pretty big. always competitive. and that was the weekend we had the audacity to get married.

silly us, we consulted our calendars & our ideas of when a nice wedding could be. we took advantage of the brand-new calendar my school system adopted for that year which gave us a week off in september. [incidentally, of the times of year we were looking at marrying, the summer was NOT one of them. i was adamant that my profession shouldn't dictate when i should get married... especially b/c i HATE to be hot. c'mon--- summer wedding in the south? yikes!]
we did not look into local sporting schedules.

had we done that, i bet more of my family would've enjoyed our wedding reception for what it was. and not sat in the hotel bar (with our free booze, i will add) watching carolina play georgia on tv. [i'm not sure... but i think GA won that year. i never really wanted to keep up with knowing. guess i coulda asked my friend who wore his damn earphones during the reception]

had we consulted the carolina home schedule, some of my family members would've been more concerned at the torrential downpour that was occuring (and ruining our plans for post-pictures) in regards to the new bride & groom---instead of how the stadium lost power for a time! oh no! what now??

if we put any thought into football instead of our wedding, i might not have had to defend my song choice to my sister when she came ranting to me (the only time i think we even talked at the reception at all) because we had the NERVE to have the band play "georgia on my mind"... she demanded to know why i would choose such a song! i reminded her that The Mr. & i have now made our home IN GEORGIA. she looked at me, a little dumbstruck and said "huh. oh, ok. that makes sense. i thought you were doing it because of the game". to which i replied (also a little dumbstruck) "nooooo. not everything revolves around football." then i heard her scoff.

if The Mr. & i only wanted to get married some other season, the same crazy sister might not have been featured on the front page of The State newspaper (sunday edition, no doubt!). this was back in the day when Lou Holtz was coaching. apparently, he held some football clinic for women. and of course my sis went. there was a Q&A session, and the reporter thought it'd be great to feature this as front page news...
my sis was in a discussion w/ lou holtz as to why she shouldn't have to be at our wedding. lou made a joke and said it was his understanding only the bride & groom need attend. and she responded how she'd be sure to miss the bouquet toss.
hahahahaha........
thanks, sis.
-----oh, and what burns me up even more??? i was never mentioned by name. so anyone reading that had no idea that a-i was getting married & b- my sister was a putz.

if we had decided to marry some other time, our going-away might have been more traditional. you know, wishing the bride & groom well. maybe make a lude comment or 2 in jest. decorate the car with words that didn't say: "go cocks! UGA sucks". or maybe i could've gotten in the car with my new husband and not witnessed the skirmish between crazy sister & some randomass drunk georgia fan as they are fighting for the window pen. i'm pretty sure some dude wrote something on the car before we could get a chance to drive off.

so, this weekend marks the 7th anniversary of that game!
to which i would like to conclude with:

GO DAWGS!!!

self- centered

we're gonna watch the superbowl w/ some friends.
while making plans, we mentioned how we won't stay for the end of the game; and i don't know when i ever saw a whole game before.

then i remarked (as i normally would in this conversation) how silly it is to not have superbowl sunday on saturday instead; since everyone has to go to work on monday. and not only that, why is the game always on so late??? 6:30? it could be a noon game.

then my friend, who spent most of her life in phoenix (and not on the east coast) reminded me of the time difference. do californians really want superbowl to start at 8am??

ha!
i'm a self-centered punk.

anyway--- go team!
have no idea who i care to win. not a fan of either.
both teams would have some history to be made... patriots for the truly undefeated season. (what is that? the 2nd time??) and if giants win, that's cool that the manning brothers could both say they won back-to-back.

enjoy your super sunday!
with super food.

tables are turned

so it's been a long-standing jab at The Mr. b/c he usually goes to sleep during New Year's Eve. tho we have seen a few together in the last 13 years, it usually takes effort on my part (ie: take him somewhere & leave the comforts of home).
since we've been married, we've usually hung out at home. he'll sleep on the couch by the fire and i'll wake him up for the ball drop.

turn those tables, baby!
i couldn't WAIT for yesterday. yummmmmmy hibachi dinner & come home just in time to watch Clemson vs Auburn in the "peach" bowl (er...chickfila bowl). the plan for The Mr. was to set the fire & be asleep by 9. (so no yelling and hooraying and cussing on my part)

who was it that slept in the 4th quarter? who happened to wake up just as auburn scored the winning TD in OT? ummmmmm, that would be me.

oops!

happy new year, all!
hope it's great in 08.

warning- diary like post

i hope all my millions of fans enjoyed their long holiday weekend.
The Mr. & i did as normal... we went to his folks' for lotsa turkey. and continued our friday tradition of indian food and turkey sammiches for dinner.
yum!!!

came home sat. to no traffic. finished more of our plaid wall.
it looks SO good! but anything was an improvement from the color purple they used w/ yellow flower borders....i can't wait to share pictures! and we, er, I watched some impressive college football.

GA/gatech was interesting. lotsa back 'n forth. then the tennessee/kentucky game was unbelieveable! and to top it off, the carolina/clemson game. (go tigers!)
i just kinda got into college football this year. but can you blame me???
how many overtime exciting games have there been? and finally, the polls are dominated not by random teams like oregon, the other usc, ohio state, but by SEC/ACC teams.... (ok, am i just writing to one fan here?)

honestly- didn't expect clemson to win. for those of you who watched, there were tons o' mistakes by USC, and tons more by clemson for not capitalizing ---we never do--- but we won when it counted, a 3 second left field goal they set up very nicely to our kicker.

man, i sound like a man!

so.... a good weekend. then today was back to normal. a long day at work where i'm still just readingreadingreading all kindsa stuff w/ no real guidance on my new job. training myself?? i can't wait for it all to start up so i can feel like i know what i'm doing again.

so, plethora of readers, i hope your thanksgiving kicked off the holiday season very well for you. is it just me, or is this a fun time???

enjoy!